


Leaving

by Chrysalin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heartbreak, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysalin/pseuds/Chrysalin
Summary: The wedding reception is beautiful, but the couple is wrong.Zutara angst, married Kataang, mentioned Maiko.





	Leaving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [faecallie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faecallie/gifts).



> I'm copying my old stuff over from Fanfiction.

“Congratulations,” Fire Lord Zuko says when they finally cross paths at the reception. His voice is almost brutally clipped and cold. 

“Thank you,” Katara says, as politely as she can, because of course it really isn’t the place for a scene. “I hear you’ll be next.”

His nod is, if possible, even curter than his words. She’s impressed at how well he can be perfectly observing the rules of propriety while making his anger painfully clear. “Next month. I hope you and Aang will be back by then.”

“I don’t know how long we’ll be on our honeymoon. It depends on how things go.” 

Aang finds them, and Katara is impressed again when Zuko actually summons a smile for the airbender. She knows they are friends, but she rather expects the Avatar to get the same cold shoulder she is. Their chat is much livelier, and much less stiff, but Aang is soon called away by another guest. She wishes it had been her, because Zuko’s temper is much easier to handle when he is yelling or firebending. Silence hurts. 

“We should talk,” she says finally. “Privately.”

This gains her a second nod, and he follows her through the crowd until they reach the terrace. Since most of the guests are not waterbenders, and her tribesmen are inside enjoying the party, it is mercifully empty as another cold night descends on the South Pole. His hands immediately withdraw into his sleeves, but that is the only concession he makes to the harsh winds. His inner fire will protect him long enough for them to have their chat.

“I’m sorry,” she begins in a rush. She wants to say more, but he gives her such an awful stare that she stops. 

Zuko lets the silence bear down on them for a long beat before he speaks. “I thought you’d been kidnapped. I couldn’t think of any other reason to wake up alone, your necklace on the pillow. I couldn’t imagine you leaving it behind willingly.”

Katara swallows hard, not sure what she can do. “It wasn’t willing.”

“It felt willing. I was scared out of my mind, and I couldn’t even send my guards to find you because of how important it was to keep our relationship secret. Imagine my surprise when my assistant told me you’d left at the first tide.”

“Zuko, I –” This gets her another glare, and she waits. He deserves to let it all out.

“I could have tolerated almost anything else, you know. If you’d told me what you were doing, I would’ve understood.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she counters. Realizing she’s just broken his unspoken demand for silence, she winces, waiting for him to lose his temper. It’s a nasty shock when he doesn’t.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. It still would’ve been better than having you disappear in the middle of the night without so much as a word. It was like losing my mother all over again.”

She hadn’t realized it before, but now that he’s said as much she starts to see just how much of a mistake she made. Finding Princess Ursa has done him a world of good, but part of Zuko is still the scared child whose mother left one night and never came home. Ursa at least talked to him first; she hadn’t afforded him that much courtesy.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

It is clearly the wrong thing to say to him right then. His control shatters and he roars, eyes burning with the rage that once powered his bending. “You’re SORRY?! If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have left me in the middle of the night! You wouldn’t have married another man after abandoning the engagement necklace I made you! It should have been us, Katara! That party inside is supposed to be ours!”

Katara wants to cry, but she knows she can’t. She still has to go back in and play the attentive bride, and it’s hard to be convincing with tear tracks on her face. Drawing herself up straight, she tries to be strong. “I didn’t have a choice.”

The disgusted sound he makes tells her very clearly what he thinks of that. “There’s always a choice. Or were all of Aang’s speeches about better ways more lies?”

“I didn’t lie to you, Zuko.”

“You came to me that night knowing what you were going to do.” She doesn’t deny it, and if anything that only serves to make him angrier. “You were wearing the necklace, sleeping next to me, even though you intended to abandon us!”

She is the one who wants to shout now, but while Zuko’s temper is so common that it can easily be ignored, hers isn’t. If they want their conversation to stay private, she has to keep the volume down. “It wasn’t easy on me either! I never wanted any of this!”

“Then why?!” he demands. He reaches out, uncertain, as if he hasn’t decided if he means to hug her or shake her, then pulls his hands back as if they’d been scalded. “I think you at least owe me that much!”

“Aang knew.”

Silence finally falls as he stares at her in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not actually sure, but you didn’t see the way he was acting, Zuko. He was looking at me strangely, and out of nowhere he started talking about how he wouldn’t be able to handle any of his Avatar duties without me, and how he’d just quit if I wasn’t there. I couldn’t let that happen. Rebuilding is too important.”

“We made a promise,” he says bitterly. “The one selfish thing we’d be able to do when the world kept clamoring for our attention.”

“I can’t be selfish at the expense of the world.”

“We agreed, Katara! It was so hard keeping our relationship hidden, and we decided to get married and damn what everyone else wanted! We made a promise!”

“This is hard on me too,” she snaps before restraining herself. “I don’t like this, but I didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t lose the Avatar because I was in love with someone else.”

“Was?” he demands.

“Am,” she amends. Tears touch the corners of her eyes, but she is quick to bend them away. “Always, Zuko. That much hasn’t changed.”

“Then why are you doing this to us?!”

“The world needs the Avatar and the Fire Lord to work together. The only way to keep that going was to sacrifice what I wanted.”

“What we wanted!”

She knew it would hurt him, but looking at him in the middle of their icy confrontation just brings back the boy who, eight years ago, had been desperate for her forgiveness. She wishes she’d given it sooner, because the blow she just dealt him was so much worse than his betrayal then. They’d only had a few minutes together in the crystal catacombs. This time she’d been secretly engaged to him for a year before leaving without a word to marry another man.

“I tried to play it off at first, you know,” he says quietly, startling her out of her thoughts. “I thought something must have come up, an illness or something, and you had to go fast before it got out of hand. I don’t think I realized what was happening until I got the invitation.”

“So you decided to get married too?” Because even though she is the one who left, it still hurts that she’s been replaced so quickly.

“It’s political and you know it. The Fire Lord has to have heirs.” The look they share makes it clear they are both thinking of what could have been, blue eyed firebending girls and golden eyed waterbending boys, or any combination thereof. “It’s not like I’m marrying Mai.”

She remembers Mai leaving in a fit of pique because of Zuko’s secrets. A small, quiet part of her is relieved, because for all their problems Zuko really cared about Mai. That horrible piece doesn’t want him happy with another woman. 

“We should just run away,” Zuko whispers. 

She wants to. It sounds like a dream, to be able to disappear into the wide world and just be Katara and Zuko. Instead, they have to face the world as it is. She is Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, the Avatar’s new wife, and he is the Fire Lord his country never wanted but has learned to accept. They’d never be allowed anything else. 

“We can’t.”

His scowl is as familiar as his scar, but it still hurts to have it directed her way. “We shouldn’t have to,” he corrects. “But here we are. Thanks to you.”

That nasty part of her flares again, wanting him to blame Aang instead, but he knows – they both know – who made the decision. Aang had probably been over exaggerating, or lying. She’d given in because she feared the possibility he wasn’t. 

“I don’t know how many times I can apologize.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice is flat again, and as cold as the winds that are starting to bother even her, so he must be in agony. “Nothing will make up for what you did.”

“I’m still your friend, Zuko.”

“No, you’re not.”

He turns sharply and goes back to the party. Aang approaches him, but judging by how quickly they part ways, Zuko is not receptive. Katara would give anything in that moment to go back and change what she’d done, but she can’t. Now they all have to pay the price.


End file.
